Well, you're not allowed to have a blade longer than 3 inches on your person in public, but that's been law for ages.

Freelancer, a knife intended for preparing food isn't equivalent to a gun because it wasn't made or purchased with the intent of either killing people or defending against people trying to kill you.

I can say quite honestly that I don't own any killing devices nor have I ever felt the need to get one for the purposes of protecting myself.

Here, we have the core of the problem. Your assumption that everyone who buys a gun does so with the intent of either killing people or defending against people trying to kill is completely false, I'd say more often than not. I don't blame you, though. You just don't have the experience of growing up in a rural area, where 12-year-olds hunting animals is the norm and marksmanship is a widespread sport.

You people keep missing my point.

I think we should be able to carry and conceal firearms. I think police officers should shoot a violent criminal on sight if he is even believed to have a weapon of his own. I think firearm safety should be a requirement in public schools.

I do not think conceal and carry is an anti-crime "tool." I don't think legal firearms deter from violent crimes (and probably contribute to them.) I think an "us vs them" mentality is a major reason for gun violence in the United States. I think people's view of firearms as tools to solve a problem is a direct contribution to gun violence in our world.

The person in this article felt justified in using his legally purchased firearm to solve his girlfriend problem. While crazy and lacking judgement, this person is obviously without respect for the power of a firearm, and the value of life. I don't like when my police officers have the same lack of value for life, simply because the person is currently making a bad decision.

If you're firing without accepting the fact that your gun could kill a person, you're firing for the wrong reason. This applies to all people, not just police officers. Continuing the concept that guns are entitlements to kill is a very disturbing concept.

Plenty of firearms are designed specifically for target shooting.


That's bypassing the criminal justice system, and inherently violates the criminal's right to due process. And I'm the one with no respect for them?


Read this; you are incorrect.


You're implying that I have a lack of value for life, but in the very same post you state that a violent criminal should be shot on sight, without regard for the fact that he may be unarmed?


I accept the fact that my gun can kill a person, but you need to understand that it is not the intent. If I am forced to deploy and discharge my firearm as an officer (or as a citizen in defense of life), it is with intent to stop an immediate threat. As odd as it may sound, once the threat is over, the scene is secure and the suspect is handcuffed, first aid is administered. The object is not to kill them - it is to stop the threat as quickly as possible.

In no aspect do I believe that owning a gun constitutes an 'entitlement to kill', and I fail in every way to understand how you could possibly determine that to be my belief.

Let's ask those same questions in a British prison.

When did we start talking about Britain?

No comment on the rest of my post?

If it's a bad decision that poses a danger to the rest of society, what is the value of his life? At the very best case, he's still probably a liability rather than an asset.

What is a life really worth? By what standard you go about determining that worth?

question, why would one need concealed carry if they only plan to use the weapon for hunting or target shooting. Heck, unless you are hunting rabbits or other small animals, then I dont even think that any gun that is able to take down the animals you are hunting would small enough to conceal carry (or modifying to be able to be concealed carry would be extremely illegal) in the first place.

I also doubt someone who only plans to do target shooting would bother with getting a concealed carry because (I at least hope to god that this is the case) the effort required to get the permit would be too great for something that isnt going to be needed. (seriously, why would you need to hide your gun from an inanimate target, and if you are hunting animals, the animal would have seen you LONG before it would be able to see your gun, and it probably wouldnt know what the gun is if it saw it anyway)

So, my point is that if you get a concealed carry permit, you are obviously expecting to have to use it to defend yourself at some point, and did not buy it just for the point of hunting and/or target shooting.

If you wear your seatbelt and buy a car with an airbag, are you expecting to crash?

Same idea.

I think he might mean shoot down any offender that is refusing to cooperate and basically trying to mow down anyone in sight. If they are refusing to stop shooting, then I believe they've just forfeited their life. I can't say for certain how I would act if I did have a gun and I did see some maniac shooting wildly. Whether or not I would drop them, I dunno. But if someone else did. Good on them!

I await the posts calling me subhuman or something like that.

I'm not sure, because he did say "I think police officers should shoot a violent criminal on sight if he is even believed to have a weapon of his own" (emphasis mine). If there's an active shooter situation, it's already a given that the guy is armed.

But there suddenly is a HUGE opportunity cost in trying to kill someone, knowing that you too could likely get killed. Just because we all would have guns doesn't mean that if someone passed us on the right that we'd ****ing take out a glock and shoot his car and blow him up. You never know what the other guy has got packing, and suddenly using that gun is a freakin huge risk. You still have to worry about the psychos like Columbine and VT, except that they wouldn't nearly be as effective if other people have guns.

Ah yeah. That's bad. That's basically calling you guilty on the spot without proof of a weapon. Whereas guilty is shooting you dead.

and just about all that hold 30 can hold up to 100 with the right mag...

then there's belt fed but that's a whole different story all together

and i think kirby is just bitter because he can't fire most guns

You're right, but I wasn't talking about concealed carry. I was talking about owning firearms in general.

Are you saying that there are idiots in the US that cause people to involentarily do something that requires said influenced person to be shot?

Also, you wear a seatbelt not because you expect to crash, but becasue you expect to be thrown from (or around inside) the vehicle if you do crash.

Secondly, you kinda PROOVED my point that I was trying to make. As I said that if people were purchasing their gun and only intended to go target shooting or hunting, they would have no need for concealed carry.

But what I want to know is what the point of concealed carry is in the first place. I mean, if what you say about increased gun ownership decreasing crime is true ( ), then wouldnt it make more sense to have the weapon unconcealed, after all, you would still have to carry the permit on you (I assume people with concealed carry permits carry it on them when they carry their gun on them, otherwise what would the point of requireing a permit be if you didnt need to proove that you had said permit), so getting stopped by security to show said proof wouldnt be a problem.

I am actualy being serious there, how is having a concealed weapon supposed to make you a less likely of a target. Stopping the criminal in the act =/= deterant. stopping the crime from occurring in the first place using threat of harsh repurcussions = deterant. (though, you also need to remember that a large number of criminals are not thinking of the consequences when they commit their crime, so realy, there is no way of detering those sorts of crime that dont involve some sort of counciling for those people if you identify them)

Because if one person is a jackass, everyone should suffer.



Translation: I'm back peddling now because too many people have called me on being kind of HURRRR. And I need people in these here internets to like me.

Hang on just a second. You're attempting to defeat my analogy by stating that other people cause accidents? Other people initiate criminal activity as well. Very rarely is an accident purely accidental - most often they're caused by someone failing to drive properly.

Your second statement is a direct result of the aforementioned crash. I don't carry a firearm because I expect to be a victim of crime. However, if I am, the crime may be violent, and it may be beneficial for me to be armed. See? You're actually assisting my argument here.



Read the link I posted above.

If people only intend to go target shooting, then no, they don't need a CC permit.

Individually, carrying doesn't necessarily make one less of a target. However, as a whole, it makes society safer - if, as a criminal, your intended victim is possibly armed, you may think twice. Not to mention the fact that the victim is now able to defend him or herself...that's of relevance as well. If, as you're saying, there is no way of deterring violent crime, then why should I not be prepared to defend myself if the need arises?

Hey..you're in Australia, right? How did that whole 'ban guns' thing work out for you guys? Last I checked, your crime rate went up.

And dude...get Firefox. It has spell check.

We had a knife thread once.

And everyone was all I SLEEP WITH LIKE NINE KNIVES ALL WITHIN FIVE INCHES OF ME SO I CAN GRAB ONE AND KILL THE SONS OF *****ES BEFORE THEY KILL ME BECAUSE I'M TOTALLY MANLY.

It was pretty hilarious.

I don't...guess I missed the bandwagon.

Maybe I should find my bayonet. It's here somewhere.

I think it might have been this thread;

http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=46059&highlight=sleep+knife#post791329

I carry a weapon for defense as well as to lend aid should a situation arise where that aid is necessitated. I don't strap a holster to my body with the feeling of regret or eagerness. It's a norm that I'm glad I have become accustomed to. I began carrying after being robbed and threated with a deadly weapon. That said, to date I have never been in a situation where I have had to draw on a person. But I know for a fact that if put in a dangerous situation where somebody had opened fire on anyone around me, I would have no problem dropping them.

I find it amazing that while I am about as leftist as you can get, I view the firearms issue at such a polar opposite as some.

I think the seatbelt analogy is a very good one. No one expects to or hopes to use a seatbelt, but it's nice to know that if someone does something stupid and endangers your life, you've got some protection.

I don't know anyone who carries a concealed weapon who is afraid or feels that they HAVE to carry, it's just that when they have the opportunity, it's nice to know that if a guy walks out of a wendy's bathroom and starts shooting towards you, you can end the threat to your life.

Oh, and in regards to not respecting what a firearm can do: that's simply not true. To carry a concealed weapon one of the primary things you learn is that you only pull that gun out and point it if your own life is in immediate danger. It's absolutely a last resort. I'd say that most people with guns of any kind which are legally purchased have more respect for and understanding of the capabilities of them than any urban liberal who thinks guns are evil.

yes, but gun ownership in Australia was low enough to start with that the people who had those crimes commited against them may not have owned a gun even if they werent "banned" (which they werent. they were just restricted). Think about it, gun ownership in Australia is not a culturaly ingrained thing, so the potential ownership of a gun is not a deterant (though, it never is, as the types of people who commit violent crimes tend to either know the victim, and therefore dont need to worry about the gun, or are in a state of mind in which the consequences of said action is far from their mind) to criminals.

Remember, the only reason that lots of you own a gun is due to your constitutional right to (and your paranioa that if you dont buy a gun, then somehow you alone not buying a gun will make everyone not a gun, thereby causeing those that own guns to give them up, and the government to turn evil, and somehow be supported by everyone, and not have any outside organizations protest, or at least, that is how you make it seem) be able to own them. As we in australia have not only never had an intrinsic right to own a firearm, nor have we ever had any armed conflict that affected the entire nation that meant that owning a firearm was vital to survive, we have never realy had great needs to own a firearm outside of using them for pest control on farms (which, under the current laws, is still perfectly legal, despite what those spinners at places like the NRA website would tell you).

This lack of a real need, has also resulted in a lack of a desire, which naturaly, led to a lack of a market, reducing both the legitimate and black markets greatly, and with the restrictions, it is far easier to tell if someone has purchased an illegal weapon. Also, do those details you get take into account all the little details of EVERY single crime?

Also: http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

Nice to see that you didn't read my link.

Your assumption that we own firearms solely because it is a Constitutional right is purely that - an assumption. You also have the arrogance to say that gun owners have irrational paranoia relative to said gun ownership, which is again untrue.

Just because you can make it up doesn't mean it's true.

This happened on the last gun thread. You act like you know our culture and what we think when you have absolutely no idea. We have an intrinsic right to own guns the same way we have an intrinsic right to own a car or a toothbrush. We own them because we want to. I bought a shotgun because I felt like it, and I could. Not because I was afraid of losing the right. My roommate's brother is about to buy a revolver because he's getting a good deal on one and it'll be fun to shoot. He owns a few rifles because he likes to hunt deer. He's got a license to conceal his pistol because if he ever wants to take his gun with him, he wants to be able to. You need to understand that it is not a big deal.

JLee if you could instead carry a gun which couldn't kill but merely guaranteed a stun, would you?

Then why is it that you are unable to explain to me what reasons other than hunting or shooting or self defense could exist for owning a working gun (because if you are collecting guns, you wouldnt care if they are operational, because if you did, then you are obviously, even if only subconciesly, expecting to use it, which then goes back to one of the other reasons). I mean, owning something for the sake of owning it, but never planning to use it just does not make any financial sense, especialy with the *****ing that you guys seem to do about things like the prices of gas and healthcare. I mean, how many differant guns do you need for target shooting, becuase even if you want experiance with differant types, I cant see how differant brands guns that are that provide a differant enough shooting experiance to justify the cost of getting both of them. I mean, if you talk about handguns, you basicly have your; tiny ones, smallish ones, medium sized ones, largeish ones, big ones, and the handcannons (like the desert eagle, which realy stretch the definition of handgun as those things recoil like hell and require both hands to use with any accuarcy).

I seriously want to know why it is that some people feel like owning something for the sake of owning it, but never intend to use it. I would also be interested to know if these people ever ***** about their financial problems (because it strikes me that someone that buys something fully knowing that they will never intend to use it in any manner would be the ones that usualy lack decent financial management). I cannot think that I have ever bought anything without planning to ever use it (though, I may well have bought things and never got round to using it, but I probably planned to use it when buying it).

Again, I want to know how someone who concealed carries is supposed to be safer than someone who unconcealed carries. Becuase, someone who attacks an unconcealed carry would attack anyone, but the deterrant effect of a gun that is not visible is unclear to me, after all, if someone is looking for an unarmed victim, they may not be thinking about if the victim is concealing a weapon. Also, what happens when the attacker is armed (as you guys seem to give me the impression that it is all so easy to buy an illegal weapon, or is it only when guns are banned that they will be easy to get ) with a gun? If they get you by surprise, they will be able to shoot you first if they see you reach for your gun, and if you are constantly having your hand on it, you probably should be thinking about getting an unconcealed carry if you feel THAT unsafe in your community. After all, if they plan on robbing you, they will have their gun out and ready, so even if they didnt plan on shooting you to begin with, it is always possible that seeing you reach for a gun could cause them to panic, while if you were unconcealed carrying, they wouldnt have gone after you in the first place.

So hunting, target shooting and self-defense are insufficient?


Again, you're jumping to a "because alpha1 thinks it, it must be so" mindset. And again, you are not correct. Some people collect cars. Do they collect cars without engines? Not that I'm aware of.


Maintaining a high-end computer does not make any financial sense. Owning three vehicles doesn't make financial sense. Buying illegal drugs doesn't make any financial sense. Buying a new car doesn't make any financial sense.

Whether or not the cost for firearms is justified is my decision - not yours. Last time I checked, you aren't on my checking account, so it's entirely none of your concern how I choose to run my budget.


Entirely irrelevant to the discussion.


Maybe you should read the link I've already posted. Criminals are more concerned about getting shot by citizens than by police. Yes, it's easy to buy an illegal weapon. If guns are banned, they'll still be easy to get.


Again, I don't have to carry to 'feel safe'. Your argument is based on a strictly modified (to 'alpha1 argument standards', which we're already familiar with) - what about the incident in the original post? What about the Utah mall shooting, in which an off-duty officer stopped a shooting spree mid-incident? What about the myriad of crimes committed without a firearm, that are deterred by a legal firearm owner? Read some of these. Yes, it happens - apparently much more often than you think.



That is impossible with current technology. If you're asking if I would replace a firearm with a Taser, no. If I could carry a weapon as compact as my firearm, with the same/higher magazine capacity that was guaranteed the same success rate, I would definitely consider it.

You really have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. At all. Seriously, you should stop.

Edit: No one shoots ANY gun with one hand except in movies. Also, every gun shoots different like every car drives different.

The pro-gun lobby follow this absurd Christian ideal that everyone is either 'good' or 'bad', and all the 'good' people must protect themselves and eachother from these hordes of 'bad' people. Society just isn't that simple.

The truth is that adding guns into the situation will only make it more dangerous. There's a fine line between anger and murder, and easy access to guns pushes you so much closer to that line. You may well think that you are a good, moral citizen and certainly not capable of murder but, as experiments like the Stanford prison experiment have shown, perfectly normal individuals are capable of doing horrible things when put in the wrong circumstances. Even you.

And then there's this absurd perception that there are hordes of 'bad guys' that go around murdering random people.
You are most likely to be raped or murdered by someone you know. Unless you carry a gun on you all the time, in your own home, when you visit friends, when you go to the bar, even then you're not going to be prepared for an unexpected attack from someone close to you.

And then there's this oft-quoted phrase 'If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns'. While I enjoy Clint Eastwood movies as much as the next hot-blooded man, this is simply absurd. The 'bad guys' are not going to magic up an illegal gun with their badness.
Yes, there is of course there is the issue of gang warfare and gun trafficing. This is a terrible issue, with gang members murdering other gang members on a daily basis (many of whom are often teenagers). This sort of organised urban warfare probably does take place with illegal firearms.
However, it's an entirely different issue to that of domestic disputes. Joe Average isn't going to have any gang links or have any idea how to get an illegal gun, so if he finds Bobby Bobson sleeping with his wife he won't have his homies whack the mother****er. However, if he can pop into a Wal Mart and buy his guns and groceries, he doesn't need to.

A guy carrying a gun, you have no idea what that guy intends to do with that gun. Hell, that guy probably doesn't even know. Anything can happen to that guy during the course of the day that makes the innocent self-defense weapon rapidly turn into a murder weapon. By allowing citizens to carry guns, you are entrusting your life in the intention of all those around you. That is irresponsible, and dangerous and I am very glad that in Britain even the police don't carry guns.

That would explain why Britain has such a low crime rate. :downs:

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”

So I go stomping around and blasting holes in people at will doesn't make me bad, it just makes me...what? Not nice? Misunderstood? A broken soul whom we must first find out what ails him?

The world is a helluva lot simpler if you break it down into binary things. Yes/no, good/bad, right/wrong, true/false. My good/bad do not stem from ChristianityTo me, bad = wanting to harm other humans for their own selfish desires and good = having respend for fellow human wanting to better our kind. If you are blasting holes in people, I will treat you as a bad guy and deal accordingly. We'll talk after you've stopped shooting (if alive).

Hey Yecti, how do you carry your gun? Is it in a cowboy holster, or is it hidden under your shirt, or what?

"Pro-gun" people are Christians now? I always thought those lads were pro-constitutional rights. But that could be an odd concept to a nanny-state Brit.



Because guns are the only way to kill a person amirite? Guns don't lean people any closer to murder than a kitchen knife or a rolling pin or a straight razor or a paper weight or a candle stick or your own bare fists. Anyone can use their fists to do horrible things when put in the wrong circumstances.
Even... you. Dun dunnnn.




So just where did you encounter this apparent perception that the people of the United States hold about the world? Do you also perceive all Australians wrangle crocodiles and barbeque shrimp? The reality is far from what you assume. Americans aren't the gun-toting rednecks you think they are.



Probably? Why would any gang-member go through the trouble of legally purchasing a firearm when they could get one faster and cheaper illegally?
If guns were banned, and all the law-abiding citizens turned in their weapons, who is left? Law enforcement, and all the bad guys with all their illegal weapons. You just disproved the first half of your paragraph with the last half.



If Average Joe finds Bobbie Bobson sleeping with his wife, his thought process isn't going to be "Mother****er I will kill you oh snap I can't buy a gun lets get some chips and watch the football game." He'll still kill him anyway. Probably with one of those awful knives in the kitchen.



You entrust your life in the intentions of all those around you every single day. You trust the people driving around youn ot to re-enact scenes from Death Proof, you entrust people in the supermarket to not attempt to sodomise you with a sausage, and you entrust people that prepare your food to not slip cyanide into your turkey sandwich.

You have obviously never fired a weapon before.

It's also absurdly easy to create a deadly bomb with materials more readily available (and cheaper!) than guns.

functioning weapons have far more collector's value

to make one non functioning you have to do things that damage the firearm and condition is everything to a collector

case in point... a demilled MG42... if the parts are original german parts you might pay up to $2000... a functioning MG42 $30,000+

Mort has essentially said, with more elegance and tact, what I have been trying to say this entire thread. Thank you, mort.